To Put It Another Way Is Euphemism`s Role

To overcome the sleep-deprivation stigma of late-night air travel, Eastern Airlines has lately taken to calling its red-eye flights ``Moonlight Specials.``

Whether ``red-eye`` or ``Moonlight,`` the plane still leaves at 12:55 a.m. But by coming up with a euphemistic name for the flights, Eastern has taken something that sounds exhausting and turned it into something that seems almost romantic.

Similarly, the Reagan administration has devised euphemisms for taxes (revenue enhancement), the MX missile (the Peacekeeper) and anti-communist rebels (freedom fighters) to sway public sentiment.

Of all the components of language, only euphemisms can turn the unpleasant into the palatable. They can either enlighten or deceive.

Euphemisms have eliminated old people from America, a place now populated by ``senior citizens.`` They have done away with the poor, retarded and ambitious, replacing them with the ``underprivileged,`` the ``mentally handicapped`` and the ``upwardly mobile.``

Euphemisms can turn defeat into victory when ``retreat`` becomes ``redeployment.`` War sounds peaceful when it is known as ``pacification.`` In Hitler`s Germany, a euphemism turned ``genocide`` into ``the final solution.`` And when Jimmy Carter`s attempt to rescue the hostages from Iran died in the desert, a euphemism turned failure into ``an incomplete success.``

The human impulse to verbally avoid the disturbing is an ancient one. In medieval Russia and Germany, the word for ``bear`` was abandoned for fear of conjuring the beast by merely mentioning its name. Instead, the animals were called ``honey finders.``

Ancient Greeks also used euphemisms to flatter, referring to angry goddesses as the ``Kindly Ones.`` The Romans used the term ``the Gentle Ones`` when speaking of the dead and never mentioned Hades directly, preferring instead the euphemistic ``down there.`` During the Middle Ages, superstitious Portuguese sailors changed the name of Africa`s Cape of Storms to the Cape of Good Hope.

Euphemisms fill the language of the sensitive, the fearful and the demure. Their use often reflects what a society regards as taboo.

``The types of euphemisms we choose to use are a good measure of contemporary taste,`` said Joseph Epstein, editor of The American Scholar magazine. ``We use a euphemism for what we are afraid to call by its proper name.``

Euphemisms generally come into play when people talk about topics that deal with fear (death, aging, war), propriety (sex, body parts, bodily functions, profanities) and delicacy (personal appearance), said David Pharies, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Florida.

In Victorian England, the forbidden subject was sex, the body and anything remotely connected to either. Underwear became ``unmentionables,`` ``inexpressibles`` and ``nether garments.`` Any direct mention of legs was so forbidden that even table legs were called ``limbs.`` The present-day references to the white and dark meat of chicken began as Victorian euphemisms for breasts and thighs. ``Drumstick,`` too, was coined as a way to avoid saying ``leg.``

Sexual intercourse was called ``the act,`` a euphemism resurrected by Ann Landers when she conducted her 1985 sex survey that asked American women, ``Would you be content to be held close and treated tenderly, and forget about `the act`?``

As sensitive as the Victorians were to the subject of the human body, they had no similarly polite vocabulary when it came to race and class. The poor lived in slums, and nobody tried to disguise that fact through the use of euphemisms.

In contemporary America, the reverse is true: Sexual talk has lost its coyness, but race, class and age have become sensitive areas. Here, the poor don`t live in slums but the ``underprivileged`` do live in the ``inner city.`` The terms ``Negroes`` and ``colored people`` have been replaced by ``blacks`` and ``Afro-Americans.``

Youth-oriented Americans have developed a laundry list of euphemisms to avoid talking directly about old age and death. The elderly are described as ``getting on in years,`` ``past their prime`` and ``in their golden years.`` They no longer go to old-folks homes but to ``care centers`` or ``retirement communities.`` When they die, they ``depart,`` ``pass away`` or ``meet their maker.``

The social sciences have contributed a slew of non-judgmental euphemisms coined by sociologists, psychologists and educators. Drug addicts are now the ``chemically dependent.`` Those of low intelligence are ``exceptional students.`` Poor countries have gone from ``underdeveloped`` to ``developing`` to ``emerging`` nations -- all of which belong to the ``Third World.``

Engineers, scientists and technicians have added their own euphemisms. Garbage men have become ``sanitation engineers.`` The city dump has become a ``sanitary landfill`` and sewage disposal plants are now ``wastewater treatment facilities.``